


In the forest

by Yōu (eggiegg)



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:45:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggiegg/pseuds/Y%C5%8Du
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Riven managed to keep sane, or perhaps alternatively, how insanity managed to find foot to keep on going, because it had to find its rhythm. </p><p>   It was probably 3AM, the end of Autumn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timuzu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timuzu/gifts).



   It was probably 3AM, the end of Autumn.

 

Winter was coming, she could feel it seeping through her skin, invading her veins, rampaging through her blood, melting into her bones. The small campfire she managed to gather up and raise glowed dimly, she reached towards it, looking for something, knowing that she would get burnt if she went too far, knowing that but wanting to stick her hands into it. Stick herself into it. Take the cold out of her once and for all. There were rumours of a monk who had set himself on fire, burnt in front of everyone in meditation. She thought of how silly that sounded, pulled her hands away from the fire, back into the cold, shivered only slightly at the contrast and rubbed them together instead. A fingernail scratched sharply against her palm, she didn’t notice it until blood spread across her rough palms and twisted joints. She shifts her position, the old log she’d been sitting on didn’t feel warm in the least, but she knew it would be even worse to move somewhere else. Earth seemed to drag the warmth out of her body, into the abyss, endlessly, a vacuum hungry for it, for anything, and once it was done feasting on her heat, it would move onto the other things she thought she had.

Even now, the warmth hasn’t quite found its way back through her feet. Even now, after joining the league and occasionally living in its quarters. There’s something empty about its perspicacity to reach into something deeper that is stronger than her body could hold and devouring it all.

But it was worse, in that forest.

In that forest, when she had nothing but undead thoughts of battle, and her.

Those were times when nights were daydreams waiting for mornings to come and mornings were unsolicited curses at the sun and days were nightmares waiting to be ended. Those were nights when the firewood she gathered during the day were never enough, when the clothes she wore itched and fungus grew in patches all over her skin. Sometimes, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she started travelling, found bodies of water, rid herself of the clothes and stayed in the water, freezing or not, with fish swimming or not, wherever it would be. Though she has since then become accustomed to closing her eyes as she does this. As she threw up for what feels like a century when she saw the armour with crests of honour laid out in front of her, threw out her loyalty and her self-preservation, threw out the days when she thought she pretended she didn’t know what Singed was planning, threw out the memories of people she killed- civilians, the old, the young, the sick, the ones begging, the ones wielding weapons, the ones screaming vengeance, threw them all up, and would lie in her own vomit for hours, for hours, for hours she pretended she was already dead and gone.

There were things she couldn’t throw up, though. A small laugh, getting choked by her hard, pressed against somewhere, was it a table? A loud, unforgiving voice by her left ear, and clashes of teeth, flashes of silver, the clink of armour and weapons falling to the ground, and the strangest, most unnerving idea that she could be happy in a nation like that because _she_ was there.

Somehow, and undoubtedly of selfishness and a need to remain sane, she refused to let the cold infect that, or perhaps, the cold couldn’t reach where it was supposed to reach, couldn’t find the perpetrator to things that even Riven didn’t understand, that no one on earth would ever truly understand.

Do you ever think about it? Do you ever wonder about the depth of hearts, anyone’s? I think you do, if so, when you get the opportunity, if you ever do, close your eyes and reach into their chest, let their blood wash over your hand but don’t open your eyes yet. Don’t open them, whatever you do, don’t open them. Once you get through the slow uncertainties, the bits of sinew left from memories, the cuts and scars, deep and thin, multitudinous all around the length of their warmth, reach until you find yourself. And you will find yourself. Grab yourself in them and throw that bit deeper, throw it farther, throw it into their soul and open your eyes. Do you like what you see?

Their first meeting was back when Riven was in training, 16 years old, living in sweat and occasionally writing back to her family. She was living in the soldiers’ quarters, out to practice late at night, a night much warmer than the one in the forest. It was the kind of night that you think you’d be swept away from, the kind of night when you think that it’s not worth it, for this road to be so painful, just because there you were along this road. But quietly, and perhaps the only part with truth encrypted in your hands, you think you’d do it again any time. Over and over, if it meant just a glance into her eye.

At first it was a slight twitch in the bush, Riven paid no attention to it, kept swinging her sword, glad that the night was somehow delaying the inevitable soaking of her clothing in sweat.

But then there was a small laugh, like fire, followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal. It was none of her business anyway.  

“You’d be dead by now if someone were out to kill you,” the bush said. Fucking bush, thought Riven.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, lunging forward, _damn_ , the blade scrapped against the ground again. As she thought, she wasn’t used to the length quite yet, not a blade quite as nice as this one. It wasn’t the runic blade that determined her worth quite yet, but it was still a nice one, all the edges sharp enough, the weight a little heavier than what she was used to, but that would change soon enough.

From the bush, a young girl crawled out, her early teens, hair stuck around all over the place, mud on her leather boots and Riven assumed the same with her loose black shirt. She had this nasty grin on her face, an act of charity, giving misinterpreted directions to stubborn knights on their horses, all the way up to the cliff before they realize she would soon push them off after a few stabs.

She whistled, “Where does all that confidence come from? Proportional to that big-ass blade you got there?”

Riven needn’t reply.

“Are you from the village near here? Your parents must be worried.” She said quietly, and sincerely, very sincerely, she hoped that that really is the case.

“Fuck off, tight-ass.” She snarled, “I can beat you with a quarter of that big-ass sword you got there.”

Ironic, wasn’t it? How Riven, would, in fact, one day be left to fight with about a quarter of what is left of her pride and soul.

In the forest, Riven closed her eyes, breathed out, she could hear Katarina’s gasp when a voice called her name from beyond the gate, could see her wry smirk and mocking salute before dashing past Riven and off into the night. A few years later, she would learn that the voice was Cassiopeia’s tired one, ordered by their father to find her older sister. A few years later, Katarina would dart through her window instead of laughing at her in the bush. A few years later, Riven would receive her black stone rune sword.

“Isn’t it ridiculously ugly?”

A few years later, Riven would no longer be surprised at Katarina’s crude way of describing things.There were worse in her unit.

The flames dimmed in Riven’s eyes, she thought of her alacrity, that blandish belief of will, how it was supposed to be heroic, how _right_ it felt, how _right_ it was supposed to be, until it went wrong. She touched her sword, the blade used to brighten with life when she did, its raw power transformed into life essence inside of her – her ally, in killing.

“What’s that supposed to do?” The Katarina in her mind scoffed, would probably push her hard on the shoulder, “Where does your loyalty lie?”

I don’t know.

“What the fuck’s this bullshit supposed to achieve?”

Who knows?

“Who the hell are you even running from?”

“Shut up, Kat,” she whispered into the night, and half-expected to hear Katarina's wayward chortle from one of the shadows.

On nights like those, it became difficult not to think of difficult things, difficult things that make your face burn and tussle and turn in your bed. _Terrible time to think about that_ , you’d think, staring into the ceiling. You’d blame the shadows, walking on your walls and breathing in the silence, loosen up until the shadows bring you into the slumber that releases you; the heat chewing into your blanket and air, until it becomes too comfortable to bear.

Perhaps that was good for Riven, to feel her cheeks burn in the cold, shiver as the heat inside of her accumulates into gold, is spent for just another moment of survival. _Terrible time to think about that_ , she thought. Perhaps it wasn’t so terrible; perhaps that’s how she managed to stand at the doors of the League a year later.

“Impressive,” Katarina was resting on the ledge of her window, the other soldiers she shared her dorm with were downstairs, chattering lively after dinner, Riven decided to stay and wipe down her armour.

“Oh, it’s you again.” She was swinging a leg back and forth, yawning into the slightly confined vacuum that was Riven’s room.

“Well, they only clean this stuff once a week and it all starts to smell bad after a day so I-”

“Wasn’t talking about that, moron. That, on your bed.”

She nodded at the bag of gold, perched quietly on Riven’s bed, indenting a spot it wasn’t supposed to belong in. It was true, Riven didn’t often get gold as a soldier, but rather things, better armour, new boots, better food.

“Oh, that.”

Katarina shrugged, “you steal it?”

“No, of course not!” Riven scowled

“Huh,” she took out a blade from nowhere and started twirling it in her fingers, before aiming it at Riven’s window ledge and began shaving wood.

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“That.”

“What?”

Riven sighed, “Kat, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged, taking an especially deep stab into the ledge, “Oh fuck.” It got stuck.

Thinking back, Riven didn’t know much about Katarina, not that she was a Du Couteau, nor that she was an assassin. It wasn’t like Riven to guess any of it either, even though the rumours had it that the first daughter of the Du Couteau was a death wielding prodigy, her finishing move was a dance of daggers that would have you see death faster than flames spread on gas.

“It was for my coming of age, a few days ago.” Riven said, grudgingly scrubbing away at one particular difficult bit of dirt on her boot.

“What?”

“The _gold_.”

Exasperation. Wasn’t that it.

“Honestly Kat...”

“You lucky fucker.”

Riven shrugged.

Katarina pointed her dagger at her, and closed an eye, “I want to come to age. Tomorrow. No, right now.”

“Why?”

It wasn’t that that Riven ever thought of the conviction of being a soldier, thinking back, it wasn’t that she truly understood exactly how heavy it was to take a swing at something, anything. Even though she had tried to master it all her life, even though she had taken the time to learn every single last dent in her long-sword, wiped away blood and sweat and felt _accomplished_ for doing so. How dare she feel _accomplished_?

Riven buried her head in her hands, the forest again, it’s returning to her, _quick, think of anything_ , she thought.

Of course, of course as it always was, it was her.

“I can’t _wait_ to go on missions.”

“Missions?”

“Yeah, take down the big-boss, no matter what it takes, and bring back their blood.”

Riven laid her freshly cleaned boot on the floor and stared into her bucket full of water, brown now. Perhaps that’s what it took to cleanse one, the dirt will always have to go somewhere.

“You have fun with that.”

“Hey, you ever do it with them?”

“Huh?” Riven never quite got used to how fast Katarina switched topics, but that was okay, because for a certain type of person, love needs to start with something foolish, something that meant nothing, something that had no beginning or ending, something minuscule for it to happen, or it wouldn’t happen at all.

Even then, even back then, Riven thought, she had begun to memorize the edges of Katarina’s face, the edges of her back, the edges of the way she stabbed with her words.

“You know, that.” When Riven stared at her blankly, Katarina jumped down from her window ledge and left her dagger there, “like _this_.”

Riven closed her eyes, somewhere, she can still feel being pulled down with too much force, being met by teeth, how it hurt, but amidst it all, Katarina had given her a secret to keep, oxygen to breathe. It made no sense how even with a kiss like that the forest can be so absurdly cold, how the stars can remain shut and blind behind rolling waves of darkness.

Katarina was swollen and bruised, angry gnashes sunk into her flesh when Riven went back to her room one night. She rested on her window ledge, the worst part is her left eye, pierced, looking as if it would ooze blood again at any given moment. Riven had already gotten the runic blade at that point, not that it would have helped, and she resented herself for that.

“When did you get back?”

“’Bout an hour ago.”

She jumped onto Riven’s bed, the Du Couteau badge shined brightly on her chest, and Riven shifted her gaze back onto the letter she was writing for her family.

 _I’m going to be dispached soon_ , she wanted to say, _to the Ionian war_.

But Katarina looked at her like _that_ , like she didn’t want to know, and admittedly, Riven didn’t want to know when exactly Katarina was going to go on a mission again either.

They were still inchoate when Katarina slid a hand across her collar, fallacious when they tossed their clothes onto the floor and fatuous when Katarina’s 3000 blades slid onto the floor, Riven was sure there had to be more hidden, somewhere, somewhere.

Somewhere, in the forest, Riven began to shake, shaking as if her life depended on it, shaking as if she would sink into the depth of the earth and be vacuumed into the forest forever if Katarina didn’t slide through one of the shadows behind trees, bushes, rocks and fallen, compiling leaves.

Wasn’t it strange, to think that nothing was left now. How she had betrayed and slaughtered, and double-betrayed for more slaughter, set up a world for herself to go to, a path by path on which if she stepped onto and walked through, would become herself, run far and wide tripping and tumbling, into her shoes for once. How great, to finally _be_ something that is herself. But she didn’t give a single fuck, that night, in the forest. Even if she had to destroy her own path and shed every last bit of dignity she had, she just wanted Katarina to look at her again, right then, into her eye for blood, jump into that whirlwind of flames and daggers, if that was what it took, if that was all it took.

“This is release,” Katarina sighed on one night in no particular, lying naked on her stomach, her hand absent-mindedly twitching. Riven wondered if she would still take her in like that. Thought of how strangely beautiful, how strangely hypnotizing it was, to believe, even if it were for just a few hours, she would come to realize what it means, oh what it would mean, to live.

It was cold, it was cold, Riven wanted to fall asleep. But no, she had to focus her mind somewhere, anywhere but the cold, anywhere but the sleep,

She spent another night thinking about Katarina, at times like those, it was best not to think of how she survived them, how she endured them. So when she saw her again, on the battlefield, she saluted to her, corners of her mouth tugging at those raised eyebrows, and rested content when she swung her broken blade at her, for her, for herself.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday tin, cactus, tobias, forests and shit can go to hell. i want to give you the world, but i guess you're only going to get this fic and my love  
> damn that was corny, im corny  
> happy birthday.
> 
> -egg


End file.
